Jethro Tull - The Hare Who Lost His Spectacles - A Passion Play 1973

[DrMarianus]

Jethro Tull married a ballerina and I believe that the woman who said "Something wonderful is happening" was, or became his wife.

[ujui6]

On the original recording, was Evan the narrator?

[Tommygun1028]

@ujui6 Not sure but this is Jeffrey Hammond

[vtripaldi]

Ian and the lads make the most wonderfull record of their career and possible in Progs top 5 of all time.

[patrickport99]

Eine 1000 mal bessere Rock-Oper als Tommy oder sonst was... :-).

Musikkritiker aus dieser Zeit haben nicht wirklich verstanden was Ian da komponiert hat. Es war ja auch ein leichteres auf Werke wie Thommy oder ähnlichem zu warten.....GOD BLESS IAN A. !!!! :-)

[patrickport99]

Eine 1000 mal bessere Rock-Oper als Tommy oder sonst was... :-)

[patrickport99]

Ich hab den Film hier zuhase und Passion Play ist eines meiner Lieblingsalben von Tull.Macht mir nix das alle das ganz schön zerrissen haben, ich find das tierisch geil....

[WhalesUnite]

OMG. I thought that I'd never see this again. I bow in thanks. I was at the Oakland, CA performance of APP, and yes, it's still the best concert I've EVER seen. Granted, it's different at age16, to now at 54, but the magic has remained. (And I still remember the deafening cheer that Ian got for popping onscreen and stroking his moustache.) We know he's a ham (or "showman") and we love him for it. Thanks again so much.

[richardkelltoolmaker]

utterly incredible and lovely ......

[MarshaR100]

Purple microdot....

[MidnightWriter8210]

I loved the Passion Play; it was one of my most favorite Tull albums.

[Mojosbigstick]

Genius!



[Starwheel6]

Passion Play has always been an underated meisterpiece.

The surreal quality mixed with the spacious maypole music

resonates with the amanita muscaria fountain @ 6:20 and

6:28 irrespectably of time/space phenomena.

[whoWouldYaLIKEmeToBe]

I love Ians cameo at 3:56

[sjkennedy100]

It was even better with WINDOWPANE....

[spikerooney011]

priceless genius...thank you one and all.

[Clematisian]

……. oh … my … Gods … Sheer brill ~ (•8-D

[hathechewed]

has he eaten them thinking they were a carrot,classic......

[Vipguy2003]

LOL this brings back some great memories. A Passion Play was the first concert I went to. I heard a rumor that Ian Anderson married one of the ballerina girls in this film. Any truth to that ?

[SpaceloopXL]

crazy,funny,poetic..i love it

[pleased9]

Shear genius.

Back in '77 I used this as a puppet show for a children's birthday party.

Long live Tull.

[lwplwp]

The first time I saw this was live on this tour.....They started the show with it....We were enthralled.

[SPGoodman]

Genius, that. "A Passion Play" remains one of my favorites to date.

[Starwheel6]

Another clue subject to interpretation is the amanita muscaria mushroom (the sacred shroom)

they circle around towards the end, my friend.

[friarted]

@Starwheel6 Should have ended with them burning the Narrator in a Wicker Man.

[Branimir9000]

Props to Jeffrey Hammond, or "Max Quad": check your Linwell Theatre playbook.

And John Evan. From what I have read and remember, Ian and Jeffrey were the creative heart of the band in those days, and The Hare Who Lost His Spectacles.

Oh, how the critics crushed Tull for this.

I love the "film school" feel, sync cuts, choreography, and the intrusion on innocence represented by Ian as the predatory cameraman in that B/W bit.

[aortafromphilly]

Ian is still at it- saw him a Penns Peak this past weekend and he did another rendition of this classic. Outstanding!

[deanculvert]

Nobody IMO could have written this while being under an influence. It is NOT always drugs that do this!

[Berthagertrude]

My God, I saw this concert in '73. The single finest show I have ever seen.

[Starwheel6]

In a 1982 interview Ian Anderson said he never did drugs.

I find this strange because this dude;s entrance is in a cloud of coke.

And it seems this bit was definitely written under the influence of something.

Alas, this video has a magical quality that holds up over time. Bravo!

Especially the spaciousness of the last minute-very beautiful!

[dmatej79]

@Starwheel6 Some people have their own fantasy and don't need these things.

[Starwheel6]

@dmatej79 True enuff... Hieronymus Bosch, Max Ernst, Yves Tanguy & Dali come to mind.

[chaoscast]

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa­aaaaaawesome!

[klnine]

Utterly outstanding. Rock and imagination at its best !

[strangetribe]

I went to a 1971 show at the Nassau Colliseum when I was 13 and was fascinated watching this.video.The opening act was James Taylors brother Livingston Taylor and when Tull came out I had a series of epihanies and feelings...I never ever looked at music the same way again... Their presence on stage combined with their incredible musicianship left me senseless.. A truly great great band!!!

[yoursaxman]

@strangetribe i attended both night at the Colluseum AND two nights at the Garden... backstage! btw- it was toured in '73.

[strangetribe]

@yoursaxman yes did i say the wrong year was that when livingston taylor backed them up

i was in 20 th row

[SheriffTankStoner]

3:55 to 3:58- Ian Anderson, what a ham. It's too bad that Jeffrey Hammond didn't stay with JT past 1976.

[rockrollluvver]

WNEW ROCKED!!!

[Landen1185]

After the end of the Video: "... We sleep by the ever-bright hole in the Door, eat in the corner, talk to the floor. Cheating the spiders, who come to say "please" politely they bend at their knees. Well, i'll go to the foot of our stairs!"

Genious.

[mercmarc]

wow, those ballerinas were smoking hot

[yoursaxman]

@mercmarc the smaller of the two ballerinas was Ian's wife, Jennie... the one who says "Something wonderful is happening!" and who later gets chased backstage by a cameraman (Ian, too)... she is also the author of the lyric to Aqualung...

just some FYI

[yoursaxman]

@jhillst that is correct. 

[sockington1]

@mercmarc liily schnaeffer certainly was - and perhaps still is

[aspersive]

Very obviously inspired by Zappa/Python. This was definitely the most personable era of Tull, which ended for good when Jeffrey Hammond left. It's a shame groups don't do this sort of thing anymore (i.e. music this complex and multi-layered, and the madcap stage presentation that comes with it).

[tsarevna212]

My childhood too! I must have been odd indeed as PP was my first JT album!! ( was inspired by great NYC ROCK STATION WNEW 102.7. Anyone else knows of it?

[Tommygun1028]

@tsarevna212 Of course I remember it - Pete Fornatale, Richard Neer, Scott Muni, Alison Steele - The Nightbird

Those were good days

[nicolevalette]

ah, my childhood.

[moby406]

Love it

[kingofthebrittains]

Mephisto in Houndstooth. Brilliant! ..or quite deranged... Perhaps he partook of the large A. Muscaria mushroom?

[sirfleabert]

And after all......Hare did have a spare.......pair....lol

[jcast18k]

@sirfleabert HAHAHAH i love that part :D

[NS9144]

Has anyone listened to the Music below the dialogue? It's GENIUS!! Tull at their satirical finest!

[Huetchen100]

Ian is so crazy:D

[gsfish11]

I caught this show..Lakeland FL I think? Was searching for the film that started the show, there was a big heartbeat sound and a ballerina that danced through a mirror/dimension changing thing. Don't remember anything after that. Too bad that kids growing up these days aren't able to experience a REAL, WIDE OPEN CONCERT. There were good radio stations back then too like WSRE in Sarasota. Thanks for the video.

[Wellveryinteresting]

Yes, someone else who remember WSRE in Sarasota (which was also known by the moniker of QUAD 102 and a half)! My young dentist when I was about and living up the road from Sarasota in New Port Richey, and I was 5 to 12 years old, from 1969 to 1976, who was in his late 20's use to have WSRE, QUAD 102.5 on his sound system in his office for everyone to listen to. He made going to the dentist fun doing that!

[pantherius]

Will you post anything else from this DVD?

[Tommygun1028]

Search for Jethro Tull on my account or this classicrockdvd one, I have plenty of clips from the 2-DVD set posted

[pantherius]

Where did you get this? And when did they do it?

[Tommygun1028]

It's on my Jethro Tull - The Minstrel Looks Back 1969-1977 2-DVD set. It's available on the tommygunvideo website. They showed this film during the Passion Play concerts in 1973

[EuroAmerican2009]

great!  Fantastic!

[TheBlueRose2008]

Jeffrey narrates on the album. I fell in love with his voice and had this wee sonnet memorized with inflection. I'm saying the lines as i'm typing! :

Great find, thanks for sharing

[RosaeCrucis57]

I love JT...I have to admit it took me awhile to appreciate "Passion Play"...then I saw the genius behind the scenes. Now, it's one of my favorite Tull albums....

[FrenchSquareDancer]

Great! I've been a fan of JT since 1976. Saw them in concert in Norfolk or Hampton Virginia I think around 1978. I agree with your comments of the best era.

[porkettaro77]

Fantastic!! Where did you find it??!!

[metalnasty]

its on the aniversary collection : the best of jethro tull DVD (2 audios cds's 1 dvd)

[mimjaw54]

oh , magic mushies !

[gofnas3]

i think this is one of those videos where the director asked for his name to be removed from the credits and then commited suicide when they didn't